Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Last night: The Rockies defeated Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers with excellent pitching and brilliant defense.

This afternoon: The Rockies defeated Chad Billingsly and the Dodgers with their bats... and with more brilliant defense.

-- The big blow of the afternoon came off the bat of Todd Helton. His three-run homer in the third answered LA's three runs scored in the top of the inning. That's what we call a huge shift in momentum (if you believe in momentum).

Helton just missed a second HR his next time, flying out to deep CF. He pulled one really hard foul down the RF line, and put a good swing on a ball to LF for an out. So it's clear he's feeling healthy right now.

-- Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki combined for four hits, one walk and five runs scored. Meanwhile, the top of the order (Dexter Fowler and Seth Smith) only totaled one hit in nine at-bats. In other words, the Rockies had 10-12 run potential with a couple more baserunners at the top.

-- Jason Hammel wasn't very good today. His command was way off. His location was off. But the thing is, when Hammel doesn't have those working in his favor, it usually gets UGLY. Today didn't really get UGLY. It wasn't pretty, but he made three big pitches to escape his final three innings and not only kept the Rockies in the game, but kept them in lead.

The offense picked him, no question about it, and the defense helped, but let's give Hammel credit for picking himself up and outpitching Mr. Billingsly by just enough. The Rockies #4 starter got a win over a really really good #2 starter. That's huge.

-- Anyone that thought timing wouldn't be an issue for Ian Stewart -- Stewart himself, Jim Tracy & Troy Renck among those -- was kidding themselves. You can't play in only a handful of spring games, get choppy playing time early in the season, and expect his at-bats to look good.

It stinks for Stewart, because Ty Wigginton will likely start stealing more playing time. It stinks for the Rockies in the long run, because Ian Stewart gives them their best chance to win on a daily basis.

-- Ubaldo Jimenez was placed on the DL this morning. Read my quick thoughts on that here.

-- What are we going to do about Huston Street?

Just embrace him. I like to think of his ninth innings as good conditioning for our hearts. Instead of taking that half hour jog in the morning, allow Huston to get your blood pumping whenever he takes the baseball. It's healthy.